Under a New Skin
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 1340: The new Quinn, from a world without Glee Club, has been experiencing this particular version of the world, and what it means for her. - Berry-St series


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 63rd cycle. Now cycle 64!_

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**"Under A New Skin"  
Gen2!Quinn (in Gen1!world)  
Berry-St series  
_(all series now listed under the communities tab in my profile)_**

She didn't want to believe it at first. Believing it meant opening the door to being called crazy, and why wouldn't they? If she went around saying she wasn't the Quinn Fabray they thought she was, that she was from some parallel world or alternate universe or whatever it was, and that she had been thrown here against her will, what would they do? Give her a hug and tell her everything would be alright? No, they would lock her up in some nut house, and she would be done for.

Even if she didn't want to believe it though, there was simply too much evidence around her for it not to be real. It was a lot to take, in some areas more than others. Home, for her, was in a class all its own.

In her… world… where she had come from, she'd had a life that was halfway very similar and halfway very different from that of this Quinn Fabray here. This Quinn had never been pregnant. She had never been kicked out of her home, never been taken in by the person she had first fashioned into her arch nemesis.

While this world had had its precious Glee Club, Quinn had only vaguely seen that thing start before Coach Sylvester had put a prompt end to it. Rachel Berry had called her out as being a co-conspirator, and from there the two of them had cultured a rivalry for the ages. That had changed the day Rachel had discovered Quinn's… situation.

No one else had known at this point, and she would have thought for certain this would have been perfect for Rachel to destroy her, but it had been the opposite. Rachel had kept the secret and, in being the only one who knew, Quinn had been forced to swallow her pride, if she wanted to confide in anyone. By the time her secret did come out, Rachel Berry had become possibly her only ally. So when Quinn had been kicked out of her home, against all odds, it had been Rachel and her fathers who took the abandoned girl into their home. For the next few months, they would be her home, her family, and something else.

She didn't think either of them had seen it coming. It had started before they even knew it had started, and when they did understand it, they were already feeling things for one another. They had become undeniable, bonded, and by the end of her pregnancy, they had become an item, for all to see.

When her mother had offered to take her back in, Quinn had thought about it very carefully. As much as part of it was that she missed being in her own house, missed her mother, she wanted to factor Rachel into the decision. What it came down to was that what little distance they would be afforded by her living at home with her mother would help to strengthen them. They had done it all backwards, with her living with Rachel and her family and then getting together with her. Rachel didn't have her club, and Quinn was about to say goodbye to her baby girl, once she was born and off into the arms of her new mother… They were all each other had, and maybe this would be good for them.

It had been the right decision. She had moved back home, and when summer had come, she and Rachel were still together. They had spent that vacation period getting stronger and closer, and now with this new school year beginning, they wanted to show that. Except on the very first day… Quinn wasn't there. If what this other Rachel said was true, her Rachel was going to be dealing with this Quinn who had never had the baby, this Quinn who had never learned to love her.

And she was stuck in this place. She was stuck having to play this girl who had apparently been given everything… She hadn't had to deal with being pregnant at sixteen, having a baby and giving her up, with being thrown out by her father, who had been entertaining his own sins behind their backs. She'd had the love story, the ragtag group of friends, the Glee Club… Herself, the closest she'd come to performing had been with the Cheerios, and that was never anything too exciting for her, until she'd been kicked off the squad. She'd had a boyfriend, who she cheated on and got pregnant with the other guy. If she hadn't had Rachel, she would have had nothing, and realizing it more and more, all she wanted was to get back to her. _But you're not there, and don't go getting fooled that this girl here is anything like your Rachel, even if she's cuddled up to Santana Lopez._

Having to play sweethearts with this guy Jesse was about the last thing she wanted, but she wasn't so foolish as to not understand that maintaining that charade would allow her, and all of them, the freedom of trying to figure out their way home without anyone singling them out for acting completely different all of a sudden. It didn't help that this guy was having even more trouble slipping into his role than she was. The version of himself he was meant to play had been a bumbling idiot, from his estimation. The other Jesse had not been the big star of his show choir, the way he was. He had been working his way up, but he was much more grounded compared to this Jesse she was dealing with.

And there was her home, her family. From what she'd been told, without the pregnancy and the abandonment, the Fabrays had held solidly to their denial for a little while longer. It had been the other… the third Quinn, the first one who had been thrown in this world, who had also been pregnant, who had confronted Russell Fabray. Keeping all these versions of herself and her family straight was enough of a headache, but for that version she was thankful. She didn't think she could have dealt with her mother still being made a fool by not knowing what her husband was up to. Still, Quinn felt bad at times, being around this Judy, who had essentially lived with all three versions of her daughter, including herself, and never noticed anything. What did that say about her, about any of them?

THE END

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******A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
************always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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